Watching Carmello working the dough, everything seemed so easy, but it is not indeed. The experience makes a difference, and he has a bunch of it. When my turn came and I prepared the dough at home it was a bit more difficult than I thought. But as I had a great teacher the result was pretty ok.

When I prepared the dough at home I had to adapt a bit the recipe, mainly with the steps sequence. As I have not a kneading machine I did it by hand and it took a while. The other difference is that at the pastry shops they don´t use butter to do the puff pastry. They use other kind of fat that does not melt as fast as butter. At home we do it with butter so everytime we extend the dough we have to place it in the fridge to cool it so that the butter does not go out of the dough. So it was a very entertaining Sunday morning.

This recipes consist on two different preparations, the custard on one side and the puff pastry on the other. I recommend you to start to prepare the puff pastry first and during the waiting and cooling times prepare the custard.

For the puff pastry, place both flours in a large bowl, add the salt, 40g of melted butter and 200ml of cold water. Combine them with the hands and as soon as it can hold a shape knead it over your work surface. Knead it well until it becomes a homogeneous dough, them cover it with a fabric and leave it rest for 20 minutes. Then knead it again during 5 minutes and cover it again with your fabric and leave it rest for another 20 minutes. Repeat this sequence a third time until your dough can pass the membrane test. This test consist in taking a little piece of the dough and stretch it carefully with your fingers; the dough gets thinner and if the gluten is well developed, the piece of dough looks like a translucent membrane. When the gluten is not well developed the dough will break and that means that you need to keep kneading.

Once the dough is ready roll it out so that it takes a more or less squared shape. Place it on a tray with flour, cover it with a plastic foil and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile place the butter block in between two baking papers and with help of a rolling pin flatten it until it is more or less 5 mm thick and on an squared shape, smaller than the size of the dough. Bring it with the paper into the fridge. It is important than the butter and dough are at the same temperature when it comes to the puff pastry making process.

Take the dough and the butter from the fridge. Extend the dough over your working surface. Remove the paper from the butter and place it centered in the middle of the dough. Now take the borders of the dough and pack the butter inside it, like an envelope. Roll the dough out in one direction so that it becomes a rectangle with a longer side. Now you have to do a simple folding. To do it, place the dough with the longer side being parallel to you. Then take the left border and fold it towards right until 2/3 the dough. Then take the right border and fold it towards left until the dough has reduce its length to a third. Cover it with a plastic foil and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. This is very important. The first time I tried to prepare puff pastry I skipped the cooling step and I was not able to finish...

When the dough is cool roll it out. To know in which direction you have to roll it place the border where you can see the foldings facing you, then roll it forward. This way the next folding will be perpendicular to the previous one. You can see what I mean with the border with the folding on the last black and white picture.

Once the dough is rolled out repeat the simple folding, cover it with a plastic folie and take it to the fridge again for other 30 minutes. When cooled roll it out as we learned before and the you have to do a double folding to finish the puff pastry process. This consist on taking the left border of your dough and fold it towards right until the middle, then do the same with the right border and fold it again over the dough until its length has reduced to a quarter. Cover the dough and take it to the fridge for a last time ( 30 minutes). When cooled, roll it out for a last time and cut it into 4cmx8cm pieces.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. On an oven tray covered with baking paper place the little rectangles living space among them, so when the dough grows they don't touch. Bake them for about 20 minutes, until they are golden brown and you can see all the layer of the puff pastry.

For the custard infuse the milk with the vanilla bean, fruits zest and cinnamon.I advice you to tie them so they are easier to find and you don't have to "fish" them. In a bowl whisk the eggs and the sugar, then add the cornflour and mix to combine. Remove the vanilla bean, fruits and cinnamon and add the egg mixture. With low heat, keep stirring the mixture until it start to get thick. Once the custard is thick enough, remove it from heat and cool it down.

At last fill the puff pastry with the custard. I separated the layers of the puff pastry in two and placed the custard in the middle, like a kind of sandwich. You can do it as you like.